Using Cooking Skills as Coping Skills for Motherhood

Localvore Challenge-Day 4

Day 4 was a pretty good cooking day if I do say so myself. Breakfast was the usual bread and spread. For lunch I boiled ,then grilled some Michigan corn and tossed it with salt and hot peppers from the farmers market. There it truly nothing like fresh corn! The balance of heat from the peppers, saltiness, and sweetness of the corn was so amazing.

As I mentioned before, we were having company so I wanted to do something nice while still adhering to the challenge. My husband was on my back about the substantial enough for our guests. “Where’s the meat?” He asked, not too much unlike the senior lady in the old Wendy’s commercials. Well, I didn’t have any. And I certainly didn’t have time to go searching for local meat. I promised him the meal would be good and hearty, even though it was vegetarian. I had to step out of the localvore realm for the evening and add Aborio rice for risotto for the menu. But, just about everything else in the risotto was local. The stock (I had made from the local chicken), the leeks, the butter, the butternut squash. Here was the full menu:

Appetizers

BrunkowHorseradish Cheese Spread with Crackers

Open-faced Quesadilla with Tomatilla Salsa and Micro Cilantro

Entree

Butternut Squash and Leek Risotto

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

drizzled with a balsamic reduction and hazelnut oil

Dessert

Fresh berries with whipped cream

So, aside from the crackers, rice, oil, cream, sugar and vinegar it was all local products that I used. And our guests walked away full and happy.

The tomatilla salsa atop of the quesadilla was a totally easy fix that I ended up loving! I had always been afraid to buy tomatillas because I wasn’t sure how to work with them, or what they would taste like. The chef at the Tiny Greens Kitchen was offering samples when I tasted his salsa. He graciously told me to blend up the tomatillas with some hot peppers. That is it! Really easy and absolutely delicious.

4 thoughts on “Localvore Challenge-Day 4”

I think that what you are doing is very admirable. If everyone took time out of their hectic lives to make a concsious effort to eat locally grown and produced foods, just think what an amazing impact it would have on our health and out economy! Kudos to you, my dear!

i am so proud of you for this weeks challenge…and i am glad i wasn’t the dinner guest…hee hee…beets never went over well with me. but hey, next time you want to practice a pumpkin recipe on me i would be up for the challenge. I LOVE PUMPKIN TOO!